question about reinstalling windows

[turbo24]

Hello, my question comes after the fact, unfortunately.
My friends computer had a problem. The log on screen would come up, and after entering password, the kernel would crash, with a screeen saying that explorer.exe wasn't initialized, hit okay, and then the screen would just show the desktop, but no icons or start menu, nothing.
So since I wasn't able to figure out what to do to fix it other than do a reinstall, I did a reinstall...
They did not have the windows disk that came with computer, so I took over my XP pro disk and installed it onto their machine, which was XP home originally. The first time I did it, I just installed over the top of the existing, trying to save their existing files. That worked, sort of. Their existing files were all there, but for some reason not accessible. Like trying to open up anything wasn't working and then the add/remove programs feature showed ZERO programs were installed. (That was strange. I don't know why that happened... any ideas about that one?)
Anyways so I figured that I made a mistake in trying to do over the top install, and decided to try to do a complete install, including formating the drive. So I did a quick format, then installed windows.
Now, after the fact, I have heard that I shoudl have deleted the partion that had th eorigianl install on it. I did not do that...i used same one.. Is that bad???
There is some odd stuff still going on...like they cannot change any of the screen properties/resolution and the hardware they are using (like dial up modem and printer) were not automatically "seen" by windows, I had to install their software for them to work.
Their system is up and running as far as they are concerned, but i am not satisfied that the job was done right.
Can anyone tell me what I amy have done wrong or what I should have done differently??
AND can anyone tell me what possible causes there are for the kernel to crash like it did? I was stumped on that one...without being able to get into windows to look at anything, I had no idea what caused that. Obviously there is no way for you to say for certain what caused it but a few maybes wouldbe cool.

[pam123]

If that's an OEM computer does it have a restore partition?
Go dig out the manual, or dowload it.
Your not removing the partitions may be a life saver for them and you.
Have you checked?
What drivers did you install for them?
It sounds like they don't have any motherboard drivers.

As to what zapped their install, if this just descended on them out of the blue then malware of some sort.
If nephew Billy "optimized" the install keep him away from the computer on his next visit.
There's always the possibility that they downloaded and installed something without understanding what it was.
I hope you left them with a full security program(s) sounds like they need it.
Also they need a full set up XP updates to go with the drivers.

[Ob1]

i would of started by booting into safe mode and ran chkdsk before doing anything else having it scan for bad sectors and repair any corrupt or missing system files. other then that, at this point, follow pam123 advice on the remaining things to do to finish the job

[turbo24]

thanks for your replies..

as for the safe mode idea, yup, i did that. But unfortunately it did the exact same thing, not even in safe mode could i get into windows. I went into command prompt and did the chkdsk and tried to do a restore. no go there either....

pam123, that was sort of my thinking...that somehow they got infected but - of course - the whole household swore they did not do that ... you know how that goes..
anyways yup i left them with new security, although not full scale cause they did not want it - they did not know how to use it and it really was over their heads - most unfortunate. I tried to explain...but the whole concept was beyond them and they did not want the full blown security deal. oh well....i can only do so much...
it was an OEM computer, and i don't think i saw a restore partition when the list of partitions came up in the windows install. Why is it possibly a life saver that i did not delete? I am hearing conflicting info, saying yes delete or no don't delete. Is there a certain rule of when you should or when you should not???

[Ob1]

some pc manufacturers make an image of the pc and store it on a hidden partition so if you didnt delete any partitions, then the original image is still on the pc so you could restore the pc to the way it was when they first got the pc.